REVIEWS


Reviews

Circus Meets Symphony, with Delightful Results

May 1, 2025 | Clive Paget, Musical America
LONDON—Spring is in the air in London and so is orchestral music courtesy of Multitudes, the ten-day multidisciplinary arts festival at the Southbank Centre. Underway since April 23, the event is presenting nine orchestras, many of them SBC … » Read
 

Reviews

The Critic, the Donor, and the Resurrection of Giants...

April 30, 2025 | Hannah Edgar, Musical America
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.— What transpired in Sioux Falls last weekend was a testament to the power of words. In 2022, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross praised the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) as “bolder and savvier in its … » Read
 

Reviews

In Juilliard's Carmelites, the Parts Are Greater than the Sum of the Whole

April 29, 2025 | Fred Cohn, Musical America
During the rehearsal period for Juilliard’s mounting of Dialogues des Carmelites , the federal government revoked the visa of a participating student. This encounter with the current administration might have been expected to lend a degree … » Read
 

Reviews

A Blowout Birthday Bash,
A Hero's Sendoff

April 29, 2025 | Steven Winn, Musical America
SAN FRANCISCO—On a night that began with baby pictures and ended with a balloon drop, San Francisco Symphony’s cherished former Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas got a farewell send-off on April 26 at a packed Davies Symphony Hall. … » Read
 

Reviews

Kentridge Dominates Shostakovich

April 28, 2025 | Clive Paget, Musical America
LONDON—If the opening concert of Multitudes , a ten-day multidisciplinary arts festival running at London’s Southbank Centre, was a seamless fusion of classical music and circus, the April 24 second night was a rather different kettle … » Read
 

Reviews

Recordings: Oppression Defied

April 23, 2025 | Clive Paget, Musical America
Musicalizing difficult subject matter can pose tough challenges. These two recordings are good examples of when composers get it right. Songs in Flight Shawn E. Okpebholo’s Songs in Flight was inspired by Freedom on the Move, a database … » Read
 

Reviews

LA Phil Premieres Carlos Simon's Good News Mass

April 22, 2025 | Richard S. Ginell, Musical America
LOS ANGELES—Carlos Simon’s Good News Mass , a de facto 50-minute symphonic gospel service combining aspects of the Catholic Mass and Pentecostal fervor, had its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall on April 17. A co-commission … » Read
 

Reviews

Recordings: Classics in New Contexts

April 21, 2025 | Clive Paget, Musical America
Classical and contemporary music can make for awkward bedfellows, but these two recent recordings show how one genre can really illuminate the another. Schubert/Beatles draws unpredicted parallels between the father of the German Lied and the … » Read
 

Reviews

Chicago's Preeminent Music Ensembles Turn to Terpsichore

April 18, 2025 | Hannah Edgar, Musical America
CHICAGO— In the 1990s, no less an eminence than Alfred Brendel urged Twyla Tharp to choreograph Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Why? “It’s so funny,” he reportedly told the contemporary ballet dancemaker. Funny? … » Read
 

Reviews

Danish String Quartet In Its First & Last Doppelgänger

April 17, 2025 | Fred Cohn, Musical America
The Danish String Quartet has forged a specialty of assembling programs that bring composers from separate eras into conversation with each other. The five-part Prism series (2019-2023) grouped one each of Beethoven’s late quartets with … » Read
 
 

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